nothing to fear." In addition to this, the various agencies of the Christian Church in India have been wonderfully developed. We have now our houses, our churches, our schools, our dictionaries and grammars. We have perfected ten translations of the Bible in the languages of India, and fifteen translations of the New Testament. We have books for education, tracts for heathen, volumes for Christians-descriptive and controversial, and hymn-books for worship. And these things are the preliminary and the platform of further operations.

Nor is it simply that, in addition to all this, there are now some 50,000 communicants in the churches of India, and 200,000 professing Christians, who meet for worship on the Sabbath, and who labour for the instruction of their families at home; but the native Christians are beginning powerfully to influence the heathen population around. The heathen, says Dr. Mullens, admit that the Christians have embraced the new faith from conviction. They ❝acknowledge at last that our Christian people differ from themselves, and that there is a practical holiness, a truth, a family purity, an uprightness, a compassion, a benevolence among them, which in their own unhappy society does not exist." The mission churches, too, are learning the importance of maintaining themselves. In this particular

the churches at Tinnevelly and in Burmah stand forth conspicuously. The young Free Church in Calcutta is now self-supporting; another in the same city contributed £150 last year for missionary purposes; and the flourishing communities in Travancore raised last year some £780. There are also a larger number of native preachers in India than ever before: among 25,000 male communicants there are no fewer than 2,000 preachers, 200 of whom are ordained to the ministry, besides 1,800 catechists and 1,500 Christian schoolmasters and teachers-3,500 in all. Especially in the two branches of the Church of England-the Church Missionary and the Propagation of the Gospel societies-and in the Wesleyan Churches of Southern India, the number of ordained native ministers is multiplying, and there is a prospect that the list will so rapidly grow as before long to exceed that of European and American missionaries. 66 Would that all the Lord's people were prophets."

But our space is exhausted. We have glanced at only two fields of foreign missionary labour, and at these but hastily. We shall hope in our next to call attention to some facts of interest gathered from other scenes of holy toil, where, in the high places of the world, other labourers are bearing the burden and heat of the day.

DEVONSHIRE is rich in contrasts. There are wild spots which have defied cultivation for ages, and glory in their wildness now as they did when the first human being broke their solitude. There are broad undulations, yellow with the ripened grain; peaceful plains studded with rural homesteads, where the honeysuckle climbs to the housetops and scents the air with its perfume. There are wildernesses of beauty where the wild flowers bloom and the ferns wave, and the rabbits and squirrels come forth

fearlessly. There are rocky hills which stand up clear amid the blue sky, some dark and barren, and others tufted in every crevice with verdure. In the openings of the hills the eye rests now on wild moorland in the distance, and now on bright green strips of meadow lying open to the sunshine. There are quiet lanes with hedgerows and bushes, and among them climbing plants interweave their delicate boughs, covered with foliage and flowers or sparkling berries. There are dense forests, where those

"green robed senators of mighty woods, tall oaks," have stood for ages in the unbroken calm.

In the course of a day's ride in Devonshire, it is possible to pass through busy towns humming with a restless crowd, into desert glooms; it is possible in one half-hour to be amid the "fairer forms that cultivation glories in," and in the next to wander through solitary places, rich in the profusion of uncultured beauty, the spots which nature loves to call her own.

But beautiful as are the inland sceneries of Devonshire, not less charming are the sceneries of its coast. There the bold cliff's overhang the plains of sand, and the shore is strewn with shining shells and pebbles. Numerous creeks tempt an exploration, caverns court the wanderer to their shade, and the broad blue sea, with its mysterious voice and crested waves sparkling in the sunlight, ceases not day and night to reflect upon its bosom the image of the Eternal.

The business that brought Edward Benson into that part of the country was completed, and having a day or two to spare before returning to London, he was enjoying the rest that is a thousandfold more sweet when following close upon hard and strenuous work. He was a young man of five and twenty, or thereabouts, although in moments when the features of his face were in repose, there was a look of weariness that belongs to a more advanced age. His life had been full of sharp struggles; the prospects of boyhood had been darkened by the sudden death of his father before the plans which had been proposed as to the completion of his education could be carried out, and he was called from the thoughtless enjoyment of school life to work for his living. An orphan, with none in the world whose voices could make an echo in his heart, without the opportunities to cultivate those habits of thought and aims in life which had been the bright dreams of his boyhood, he looked upon the world gloomily, and saw in life more of darkness than sunshine. He was

conscious of having a disposition naturally reserved, and this consciousness thwarted him in every attempt to cultivate friendships which would link his soul with the souls of others, and gain for him a participation in the joys and aspirations which stirred their lives and moulded their characters. Often when he returned from the day's duties and sat alone in his apartments, a depressing feeling of isolation stole over him; he had no kindred dear to him, there was not in the world one heart that beat responsively to his. He would pore over a book and read of earth's sympathies, and close the volume with a sigh. He would gaze from the window at the passers-by, and watch the smile that generated smiles; and his eye would dim with a tear as the word rang through the empty chambers of his inner life, alone! He took refuge in study, and night after night, in the labour of thought, he strove to create a world for himself. He peopled it with men of bygone ages, and held converse with those who being dead, yet speak." He wandered through cities where the dust he trod once breathed, and he watched the conflict of nations long since perished.

But it was an unreal life he led. The daily duties in his office were drudgery, for they brought him forth from his world, and the bustle of business contrasted strangely with the dreams of his quiet hours. And he was doing himself a continual injury; human hearts require human companionships; man needs the fellowship of living, thinking, joyous being, and the more we unite with those around us and merge our lives into theirs, the more we qualify ourselves for enjoying the sunshine and brightness of being.

When Edward Benson was entering his twentieth year, a change came over his whole life. He became acquainted with a family, kind genial folks, before the warmth of whose welcome his icy reserve melted away. He revelled in the new joy of companionship, and felt the overwhelming superiority of

ordinary living hearts to extraordinary dead ones. He found facts in relation to human happiness, where he had been accustomed to think only of ideality. And there was one in that family in whom Edward found concentrated more than all his poetic imaginations pictured Amy, the loving, playful, thoughtful Amy. There was magic in her touch, music in her voice, sunlight in her eye. She was the life of the household, the joy of the home, and Edward never thought of happiness or beauty or love without thinking of Amy.

Now there was something in life worth living for, and Edward Benson entered with heart and soul into the purposes which lay before him. Amy loved him as he loved her, and the object of all his ambition and all his hope was to work and rise in the world, and be able to make a home suitable for her.

At

Five years, five long years, he persevered through many disappointments and many cares. one time, when it seemed his bright dreams were about to be realized, and he thought to have reached that position which he coveted, a failure in the house of business in which he was engaged dashed his hopes and prospects to the ground. Then he had to commence again, standing almost where he stood when he first trod the threshold of mercantile life. But Amy cheered and smoothed the ruggedness of his path, and inspired him with fresh hope; and when a few more years had rolled away, he found he had gained by his apparent loss.

Edward Benson was rambling by the sea-side on the coasts of Devonshire. In a few days he would return to London, and then the hope of years was to be consummated, and Amy was to be his wife.

A strong wind had swept over the sea the day before, lashing the waters into angry motion. Now the wind had died away, the sun shone brilliantly; not a cloud was in the heavens, not a pulsation in the air: but still the waves rose and fell, and dashed their seething mass of water upon the shore.

Edward found a nook sheltered from the sun, and he lay there watching the waves and musing.

"What an old type, but ever new!" he thought. The sea of life, what storms and calms it has! There is in it an image of every life, and surely of mine. Those billows struggle and heave in their motion until at length they settle down into peace. There is the conflict of life, wave dashing against wave, each striving to gain upon the other, until both break in bubbles on the shore. There is the issue of life, all passing away into the dread eternity."

He watched a wave rising in the distance, crowned with a snowy crest. It toppled over and fell. He watched the undulation striving in vain to reach its former height, and vanquished in the attempt by other waves, which had gained the impetus that one had lost. Gradually it undulated nearer and nearer the shore until, with one futile effort to liberate itself, it burst, and fell in glittering drops upon the sands.

Lost in thought, Edward had not observed the approach of a gentleman rambling upon the beach. In that wild spot he had not expected to meet with any one, and he started as the stranger stood beside him. He was an old man, with white hair and a mild, calm face, lighted up with an abiding smile. There are people we sometimes meet to whom we feel instinctively attracted, whom we seem to know and they to know us, to whom the fellowship of thought is free. This Edward felt, and, without a particle of his natural reserve, he made some passing remark to the stranger which the time and circumstances seemed to warrant, and, as the stranger stopped in his walk, was demanded. Edward wanted some one to talk to, and he was not at a loss to see the want was natural. After a few ordinary commonplace remarks were made, the stranger sat down beside him.

"I have lived in this neighbourhood for upwards of forty years," said the old man. " and its beauties are as new and fresh as when I first came here. The voice of the sea has preached to me nearly every

day during that period, and it always has a fresh text."

May I ask you what the text for this morning was?' said Edward,

smiling, " for I seem to have heard a voice, but cannot quite interpret its utterance."

"Jesus rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm,' answered the stranger. "Last night the waters were roaring, and their cry came up like the sound of many voices; now they are subsiding to rest, and to-morrow we shall see the ocean pacified and calm, with scarce a ripple on his bosom. And so with man, the strong passions and the stormy trials which agitate him, the Prince of Life alone can restrain; and when He speaks peace there is peace indeed."

"Strange," said Edward, half musing and half replying to his companion; "strange that that name should be associated with this scene. You quote, Sir, from the Scriptures; but does not nature reveal God, have we not His eternity written on these everlasting hills, His glory in the heavens, His providence in the intricacies of life around us-does not this sea teach us He is infinite, that He rules the destines of life as He rules the raging of the waters, and that the bounds of our existence are fixed by Him as the bounds of the waves?"

"It does. But nature is only an alphabet, revelation is the alphabet set in order. We may see God in the abstract in His works, but we can only see God in relation to our necessities in His word. I can imagine nothing more gloomy than a weary man who has been the sport of fortune or the slave of sorrow, coming to the sea or any of the works of God for comfort. He finds abstraction where he wants a friend, and that friend, Sir, is He who, when troubles or storms in life come, can alone rebuke them, and make a great calm come over the soul."

"But man may learn, at least from the sea or from nature at large," answered Edward, that God who governs and rules all things, rules His destiny too; and he will be satisfied in knowing that

he has contended well, even if he has lost the contest."

"A poor satisfaction!" said the stranger. "It is not enough if we have centred our hopes and joys in an object to have that object taken from us, unless we know why it is taken. It is not enough to know that the cup of joy which we are about to quaff is shattered, unless we are told it contained poison. No, it is essential that we should both see God and see His purposes for us, and we can only do this by seeing Jesus, who is the Mediator between God and man, and who shows us the Father."

Edward Benson knew nothing of the mysteries of which the stranger spoke. His religion was the religion of thousands-the mere acknowledgment of God. He had never since the days of his infancy been directly spoken to upon a personal religious question. There

was a charm in the novelty which urged him to further conversation, and for a long time the clergyman (for so he proved to be) continued to talk to him, and tell him in simple natural language some of the grand truths which were the comforts of his life. It was in vain that Edward endeavoured to maintain his position in the argument, there was in the language of the clergyman a force which argument could not repel.

And when the stranger resumed his ramble and left Edward alone, there came up into his mind strange feelings about the past. He thought of those early trials he had borne, and how the loss of his earthly father never seemed to have created in his heart a yearning for the love of a Heavenly Father; the long weary years of loneliness, and his vain struggle to create a world and people it with spirits with whom He might hold converse; and he smiled as he thought how strange it was he never longed for the companionship of Him that sticketh closer than a brother-if such a companionship were to be had.

But these were passing thoughts. He was getting gloomy and miserable, he would shake them off and think of Amy.

JULY, the seventh month of the year, according to modern reckoning, the fifth, by ancient computation, was called Quintilis, until Marc Antony denominated it July, in honour of the Roman dictator Julius Cæsar, who reformed the calendar, and who was born in this month. The Saxons called July Hen-monath, probably expressing the meaning of the German word hain, signifying wood or trees; hence, hen-monath might mean foliage-month, a name most thoroughly deserved.

But

they also called it hey-monath or hay-month, "because," says Verstegan, "therein they usually mowed and made their hay harvest.

On the first of July, 1690, was fought the battle of the Boyne which decided the fate of James II. and the Stuart dynasty, and established William III. on the throne of the people. During the struggle which preceded this engagement, James laid siege to the city of Derry, or Londonderry, in the north of Ireland, on the waters of the Foyle. The besieged had no means of long defence; the greater part of those within the walls being people who had fled from their homes for shelter; they had only about twenty cannon, only a few days' provisions, and the fortifications consisted of a simple wall overgrown with grass and weeds, no fosse even before the gates, neglected drawbridges with rusty chains, and towers and parapets built after a fashion that might well excite the derision of the followers of Vauban. Yet this stronghold of Protestantism sustained a

siege and blockade for a hundred and five days, till the garrison was reduced by famine, pestilence, and the accidents of war from seven thousand to about three thousand effective men. An incredible number of persons-women, and invalids, aged people, and others, incapable of bearing arms, perished within the walls of the devoted city. Tallow and salted hides were the rations of the garrison; rats, which came to feed on the unburied corpses, were hunted and greedily devoured, and a small fish, caught in the river, was not to be purchased with money, but bartered for the far richer treasure of some handfuls of oatmeal.

Two gallant soldiers, Major Henry Baker, and Captain Adam Murray. had called the Derryites to arms; but the true hero of those appalling months was, certainly, an aged clergyman, named George Walker, rector of the parish of Donaghmore, in the county of Tyrone; who, with his neighbours, had taken refuge in Londonderry, on the approach of James's army. The perfidious governor, Lundy, who had secretly meditated giving up the city to the enemy, escaped, and Baker and Walker were elected in his stead. the former taking the military command, the latter doing his utmost to preserve internal tranquillity, and to dole out supplies from the magazines. Praying and preaching occupied a large part of every day; their spiritual arms were kept welloiled and burnished, and there were within the beleaguered city eighteen